California added 1 million coronavirus cases over the week ending Monday, bringing the state’s cumulative total to more than 7 million in the fastest accumulation of infections in the history of the pandemic. The death rate has also surged to about 106 a day, roughly double the number counted during the last week of 2021. Yet there are signs that the state’s Omicron wave is peaking: The rates for both daily cases and test positivity have dipped in recent days. L.A. Times | Sacramento Bee

See coronavirus trackers. 👉 L.A. Times | Covid19.ca.gov

On Sept. 11, 2021, Anthony Reyes’ father died from the coronavirus. The 17-year-old was inconsolable. Worse, he blamed himself for getting sick at school and bringing it to the family’s home in Riverside County. A few days after Christmas, Reyes’ mother jolted awake at 4 a.m. She went to the teenager’s bedroom and found that he had taken his own life. The reporter Brittny Mejia said this was one of the saddest stories she’d ever written. L.A. Times

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday that 45 colleges and universities in California will participate in a new program that gives students who do community service alongside their studies up to $10,000 a year. Inspired by programs such as AmeriCorps and the GI bill, the “Californians For All College Corps” will deploy undergrads to tutor local students and battle climate change and hunger. EdSource | A.P.

This month, California energy officials are poised to dramatically scale back incentives for rooftop solar. The plan has sharply divided clean energy advocates, with supporters of the change arguing that the incentives lead to higher bills for homeowners who can’t afford solar. Now former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has weighed in with an essay in the N.Y. Times: “[Rooftop solar] gives people a sense of self-sufficiency and independence from the grid. Is it any surprise that the big utilities want to take that away?”

After Joan Didion’s death in December, the text of a 1975 commencement address she delivered at UC Riverside was pulled from a library archive and published for the first known time online. It’s both gorgeously written and eerily relevant nearly a half century later. Here she is on the imperative of seeing the world as it is:

“Some of you live in the world already and some of you never will. It takes an act of will to live in the world… You have to keep stripping yourself down, examining everything you see, getting rid of whatever is blinding you. And sometimes when you get rid of what’s blinding you, you get your eyes opened, you don’t like what you see at all. And that’s the risk.” News.ucr.edu

“Lol I will not sit down. Not for any of you Karens. Sincerely, Hakeem Brown.”

“Lol is this the trick I saw coming out of a fake massage parlor? Stfu Gary. Stop bitching.”

“Lol f— you.”

Hakeem Brown, a Vallejo city councilmember and onetime frontrunner for mayor, has embraced an unorthodox approach to email correspondence with residents: cursing at them. S.F. Chronicle

“The streets are basically riddled with crow poo.”

More than 1,000 crows have been overwhelming the Bay Area city of Sunnyvale practically every evening during the pandemic. The authorities tried chasing them away with a falcon, but that didn’t work. So this month they are moving to a new strategy: For three weeks, city employees will spend an hour each day shining green lasers at the birds. N.Y. Times

In the 1860s, Chinese immigrants set out to do the seemingly impossible: bore a train-sized hole through the solid granite of the Sierra’s Donner Summit. Using hand tools and explosives, they worked 24 hours a day for 16 months. When the Transcontinental Railroad was complete, the travel time from the East Coast fell from 118 days to just six. Yet no marker commemorates the astonishing feat of the Donner Summit tunnels, which have been covered in graffiti. Historians say that’s a travesty. Smithsonian Magazine

On Tuesday, Microsoft said it planned to buy Activision Blizzard — the maker of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush — for nearly $70 billion. The blockbuster deal was spurred by troubles at the Santa Monica video game company, where claims of sexual harassment and discrimination made directors anxious for a change. If the acquisition survives antitrust scrutiny, it would represent a dramatic reversal for Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick, who could walk away with at least $390 million. Reuters | Bloomberg

Over the past year, Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de León has targeted one homeless encampment after the next, moving dozens of people at a time into temporary housing. That’s led some activists to accuse him of pursuing a policy of “banishment” for the city’s homeless. De León has now responded with a remarkable accusation: that the activists are telling people to decline rooms at shelters and in some cases are offering bribes to stay on the streets. L.A. Times

Los Angeles police on Tuesday identified a suspect in the seemingly random fatal stabbing of a furniture store employee, 24-year-old Brianna Kupfer, in Los Angeles last week. Shawn Laval Smith, 31, was seen on surveillance camera at a 7-Eleven shortly after the murder. He was believed to be homeless. Kupfer’s father blamed city leaders for allowing crime to spike: “This needs to be a reminder for everyone to ask themselves, ‘Look, do we really want this kind of danger in our lives? What are we doing here?’ This has to change.” NY Post | L.A. Times

… Richard Lloyd, a Santa Barbara-based aficionado of non-alcoholic craft beers who posts reviews of the burgeoning industry’s creations at @zerobeerguy on Instagram.

Q. What is one place everyone should visit in California?

A. Santa Barbara! It’s a perfect place to visit because of the year-round great weather and no shortage of outdoor things to do: hiking in the foothills and mountains, relaxing on the beach, sailing out to the Channel Islands or shopping and enjoying the restaurants and bars on State Street.

What’s the best book you’ve read or podcast you’ve listened to recently?

“Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life” by William Finnegan. Fascinating book about life, surfing and travelling the world.

What’s a hidden food gem in your area?

The Fish Market at the Harbor — the best place to pick up locally caught seafood, fresh off the boat.

You’re organizing a dinner party. Which three California figures, dead or alive, do you invite, and why? How would you get the conversation started?

I’d invite Clara Shortridge Foltz, who was California’s first female lawyer and has a pretty fascinating life story, astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, and UCLA coach John Wooden. I would start by asking them to tell their best joke, and then share the worst piece of advice they’ve been given!

What’s been your experience with non-alcoholic beers? Are there breweries in California that you think are making really good brews?

By creatively tweaking the brewing process, using more advanced alcohol-removal techniques, and adopting a more expansive view of beer styles, craft NA brewers today have developed a whole range of better-tasting NA beers that pack in all of the flavor of their craft-beer cousins.

Over the last year I’ve tried about 100 different NA beers, many of which are reviewed on my Instagram page. Not all are hits, but overall the quality from the craft NA breweries have been excellent. Two Roots Brewing is based in San Diego, and have two delicious IPAs — the “Straight Drank” West-Coast style and “New West” hazy IPA — and also have an award-winning “Enough Said” Helles-style ale. Rationale Brewing from Sonoma is a recent entrant to the NA market; they have a great-tasting and super juicy hazy IPA, as well as a very crisp and clean pilsner.

“5 questions with …” is a weekly feature by Finn Cohen, who edits the California Sun. Conversations are sometimes edited for brevity. Someone you’d like to see interviewed? Let him know: finn@californiasun.co.